Wordplay

[cjsmith]

[Poll #1100080]

I was something like thirty-eight when I had a sudden insight that these words might be related. I felt phenomenally stupid for not having seen it before. It's not like I've never studied a Romance language or somehow never in my life encountered that scent for soap.

Then I started telling friends, and so far, they've all responded with variants of "What do you mean, obvious? How the @#$! would you come up with something like that? Weirdo."

This is the kind of thing I wonder about a lot. Is there any relationship between the endings of "lavender" and "provender"? How many pairs of words used to follow the pattern "bear"/"birth" (verb -> vowel change + "th" -> noun) before we dropped those usages, and just how much does "death" count as one of the last remaining examples? If a pantler had charge of the pantry (bread = pan), and a hostler worked at a hostelry, did a butler (bottles, wine) ever at any time in the language have anything like a "butry", and are "gentry" or "gantry" even remotely related to this pattern?

Um, sorry, I'm just kind of like this. :-)

Comments

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

Uh, yea, I knew that. You told me :-)

[takhisis.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I figured it out only in high school when I studied French, where the verb for "to wash" is lavere, and I went "heyyyyyy!". I didn't learn Latin until later. :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I blazed straight through French and even learned that verb in both Spanish and Italian before I twigged to this concept. (Haven't ever learned Latin. Probably should one of these days. Less fun for me: can't talk to native speakers!)

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Looking at the etymologies in NI3, I'm not sure that they are related. Lavare seems to be related to lye, while lavender (they claim) is from the Latin lavandula which comes from livere "to be blue".

On the other hand, if they're not actually etymons, that's a great germ of a flat base (http://puzzlers.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=guide:start&expand=flat) you have there.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Well, a couple of etymology sources say that they "may be" related, and frankly, since I can't imagine them not being, that's good enough for me to put this question up. :-)

[bigredpaul.livejournal.com]

Lavender was used as a cleaning agent by the ancients, so I can see how they could be related.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Even if one is not a direct descendant of the other, I too can easily imagine there's a relationship there.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

I certainly didn't mean you shouldn't have put this question up. My poll choice was "Let's talk about whether they really are, shall we?" and I proceeded to do so.

Personally, I get more excited when I find words that "should be" related but aren't, because those are excellent "flat bases." In the National Puzzlers' League, we have these word puzzles called "flats" and the answer is called the "base" of the flat. Bases are typically sets of words that have morphological similarities and can be related through a brief poem, but which are not allowed to be etymologically related. Flats are poems that incorporate the base words, but with the actual base words replaced by cuewords.

An example may clarify: The following flat would be marked BEHEADMENT (5, *4) (*4 = not M-W) (which simply means "MOLD takes the place of a 5-letter word; OLD takes the place of a 4-letter proper noun that is not an entry in any Merriam-Webster dictionary; delete the first letter of the 5-letter word and you get the 4-letter word).

Dr. Frankenstein cried, "OLD!
This body's hours old, and dead.
MOLD has set in. He's getting cold.
Now, where'd you put his precious head?"

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't take it that way -- no worries!

I'm almost frustrated by the etymology related to livid. It seems like a much weaker link, in terms of phonemes, than lavare (especially if you take into account the Italian lavanda, "a washing"). Since the dictionaries go ahead and reference lavanda as a "related" word, why is the link with livid considered stronger? This fascinates me.

Thank you for more information on flat base puzzles. I followed the previous link and didn't clue in. Would the puzzle be posed simply as this poem? Would the "BEHEADMENT(5, *4) (*4 = not M-W)" label be included? Does the four-letter proper noun have to rhyme with cold?

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Would the puzzle be posed simply as this poem? Would the "BEHEADMENT (5, *4) (*4 = not M-W)" label be included?

The tagging and enumeration appear above the poem, where the title usually goes. And, yes, the poem and its tagging and enumeration are usually all you get. (The main exceptions are what we call rebuses -- which are not what most people call rebuses -- and their derived types. Those have a "rubric" as well as the poem.)

Does the four-letter proper noun have to rhyme with cold?

No, the cuewords have to scan and rhyme in context but the solution words do not have to do either.

There's a more detailed explanation along with a "mini-sample" issue of The Enigma at the National Puzzlers' League website (http://www.puzzlers.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=mini:start), if you're interested.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Do the solution words have to have meanings that make sense in the poem? For example, does the five-letter word have to be something that can "set in" on a dead body?

(I think I've solved that one... FINALLY. Much as I love words, word-game puzzles have an incredible ability to make me feel like the slow child at the back of the classroom.)

Thanks!

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Yes, they do have to make sense, including agreeing in number, part of speech, and tense with the rest of the sentence --- although not necessarily with the cueword. Devilish constructors will throw you off by having a word in the poem that is read one way with the cueword and as a different part of speech with the solution word.

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought about those particular words... but your question made me wonder, "Do you subscribe to 'A Word A Day'?"

[mithriltabby]

Isn’t etymology fun? I keep a dictionary in my PDA so I can satisfy idle curiosity like that...

[eveningscribe.livejournal.com]

Yes, of course Jeeves has his own butlery:-( (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=butlery)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hadn't thought to spell it like that! Now I'm wondering about the strength of the link with "buttery" (the noun, not the adjective).

[ladycelia.livejournal.com]

I dream of one day owning the OED.

And I've been reading dictionaries for fun since I was a kid. You're not alone in your weirdness.

[allanh.livejournal.com]

If I ever find my extra copy of "Eats, Shoots and Leaves", I know to whom I'm going to give it.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Got one. :-)

[firecat]

If you love that sort of thing, then read Robert Graves's The White Goddess, which uses word similarity arguments to support quite an amazing thesis.

I don't believe most of it. I mean, there are only so many sounds that humans can make, and so some words are going to sound the same but not be related. But it's certainly fun to think about.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

gentry derives from Latin gens, which means extended family or clan. The gentry were the people who had famous ancestors.

gantry has a very different origin: Middle English ganter, gauntree, from Anglo-French *ganter, from Old French dialect (Artois) gantier, from Latin cantherius horse of poor quality, rafter, trellis

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Right. I was wondering in particular about the -try. In gantry, those sounds clearly have been carried forward from the -ter or the -tree of Middle English; in gentry, it looks more like the -terie of Old French, and those two would seem to me to be unrelated. But it's cool that the words are so darned similar now.

[lizzie-omalley.livejournal.com]

I love things like that. From time to time, words will jump up and make me wonder where they came from and what their relations are. I am also curious about how they morph over time. Language shapes thought. It's powerful and curious stuff.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I love thinking about how they morph over time. That is fascinating to me. If I spoke with someone from 1900, how odd would we sound to each other? 1800? 1700? It's not that long ago, and we'd sound pretty different. Jump to 1600 and I imagine we'd have some trouble understanding each other.

[lkeele.livejournal.com]

You didn't have a checky-box for "I hadn't thought about it, but I bet my husband has." Rondo and Jacob both *love* to think about the origins of words, and the way various words are connected. Rondo doesn't even use his etymological dictionary any more -- he just goes directly to his Greek and Latin dictionaries.

I like that you're kind of like that. :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Rondo doesn't even use his etymological dictionary any more -- he just goes directly to his Greek and Latin dictionaries.

Lavender is an excellent example of why that could trip a person up. Etymologists link it more closely with livid, if you can believe it, than with lavare, although they do also admit of the second link. Isn't that just wrong? :-)

word play

[justetthon.livejournal.com]

I like that you're kinda like that also. This interests me as well... where words come from, what we think of them, etc. Fun stuff!